


Mortem.

by kyaipn



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Anxiety, Daniel Howell - Freeform, Fear, Fear of Death, Hurt/Comfort, Intrusive Thoughts, M/M, Phil Lester - Freeform, hurt!phil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-27 08:20:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13876932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyaipn/pseuds/kyaipn
Summary: A look at Phil's intrusive thoughts and fears of death.





	Mortem.

_"This body is not me._  
_I am not limited by this body._  
_I am life without boundaries._  
_I have never been born,_  
_and I have never died._  
_Look at the ocean and the sky filled with stars, manifestations from my wondrous true mind._  
_Since before time, I have been free._  
_Birth and death are only doors through which we pass, sacred thresholds on our journey._  
_Birth and death are a game of hide- and seek._  
_So laugh with me,_  
_hold my hand,_

_let us say good-bye,_  
_say good-bye, to meet again soon._  
_We meet today._  
_We will meet again tomorrow._  
_We will meet at the source every moment._  
_We meet each other in all forms of life."_

_Thich Nhat Hanh, Chanting and Recitations from Plum Village. Page 188._

_\---_

"What if we died right now?" Phil asked casually.

"Hmm," Dan paused for a moment, as if he were putting thought into a highly important decision, "we'd be dead, I guess."

"Would anyone find us?"

"I don't know, we're in a lift in a London office building so probably -- eventually."

"What if the lift broke --- and it crashed down. And we were crushed? Who would die first?"

"Wouldn't we die at the same time?" Dan muttered.

"I dunno,"

A few seconds later, Phil was caught up in his head again. The lift rang.

He did this often -- getting caught up in his fears and worries over death. Mostly, Phil would pretend as if death didn't truly exist; as if the concept itself was a horror story created by some child's overactive imagination. Something he could, inevitably, avoid altogether.

But sometimes it would exist. Phil would spend hours on end analyzing a situation, imaging every possibility where the next moments would be their last. And he always asked Dan 'what then?', as if somehow Dan understood what death meant better than Phil himself.

Despite his old-aged branding of 'existential crisis, death, worry' Dan didn't often dwell on these subjects in the same way Phil might.

When he worried, he pondered life over death. He wondered if he had done enough, if he would leave behind a message -- an impact. He wondered if he was wasting the little time he had on pointless things. Time wasn't going backwards, neither was he.

His therapist had once told him that 'the past doesn't exist anymore; go forward.'

Phil, however, thought death over life. Mostly, on the days where his mind got too ahead of him, he'd worry more over the future and the inevitable than the present and tangible. He'd worry about his death -- whether in five minutes or fifty years. Dan once had caught him researching London funeral prices, and doing the math to see how much it might cost for their kids in a few decades time.

Dan was forever caught in the past, and Phil was forever caught in the future.

But the present was the only place where they would ever exist.

**

"Phil," he whispered.

"Mm?"

"We're here."

"Where?"

"The set meeting?"

"Oh, yeah." Phil blinked rabidly, rubbed his eyes, then, "What do you suppose would happen to a tall glass building in an earthquake?"

"I think we'll be okay, Phil. Don't worry."

"Probably not. I mean -- glass shatters. It might cut into us, and say the building crumbles and ---"

"I meant; we'll be okay because there hasn't been a major earthquake in the UK since 1884."

"There could always be another one, you know."

Dan sighed, "Let's not worry about that right now, yeah? Let's just worry about the tour we have coming up in less than a few months."

"Okay."

  
Halfway through the meeting, lost in his thoughts, Phil flinched. Hard.

Dan glanced at him, whispered "You alright?"

Phil came out of his haze, "Hm?"

"You just flinched like I threatened to beat you with a bloody spiked dildo."

Phil grimiced, then muffled a lost giggle with his hand. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Still thinking?"

"I thought of a huge truck coming through the window and hitting us -- it hit you first."

"Trucks can't physically get the high speed that ---"

"I know."

That was another thing about Phil; he knew.

He knew, logically, that there was only ever a low chance of something happening. They'll likely live until they're old, happy and healthy and perfectly safe. It's the 1%, the low odds no one ever really accounts for, that terrify Phil. Mostly, the one's that bring up his thoughts.

The situations no one truly has a solution for, because they likely won't ever happen.

*

Later, on the bus back to their flat, Phil muttered something -- incomprehensible -- aloud to himself.

"What was that?"

Phil ignored him, "How long do you think it would take to get to the emergency exit on a bus?"

Dan stopped, "Not long, there's one right there."

"If the bus was on fire, though."

"Hmm,"

Mostly, Dan liked to humour Phil.

Sometimes, if he was exhausted, he simply answered 'we would die' to Phil's unanswerable questions about the world.

But mostly, he would think; try to get inside Phil's mind, and find any possible escape from the fictional deadly situation in front of them. When he could tell Phil was genuinely worried, he might try a bit harder to get them to the comfort of safety. That was more often than not.

"Well --- the escape is right there. If there was a fire, it would start from the back engine and gas explosions, right? We're at the front, so we'd have a bit of time. We could either take off our shoes and break the glass, or make it to the fire exit. We're both quite tall, so I think people would let us go first so we could open it easier. Plus, this is right downtown so people would see and help us. There's a fire brigade not too far from here, I think."

Phil blinked, "Yeah, okay."

A pause.

"What if I was alone?"

That too, mostly. Because if Dan could calm a worry with a 'together', Phil's mind would instantly go to the only other conclusion; 'alone'.

"You don't really go out alone too often,"

"No -- but what if it's a day where I did? I wouldn't really know what to do by myself."

Dan thought for a moment, "You can always call me."

Dan's mind, now mixed in a stir-fry with Phil's thoughts, had come to at least five scenarios where that wouldn't work. Mostly, Phil's didn't. To him, Dan was the ultimate form of security. If Dan was at least tangible, everything might somehow be okay.

"Okay."

Phil's lightly clutched his hand into Dan's, under black winter coats and crowded buses.

Dan let him.

**Author's Note:**

> listen, if no one else is willing to write about what goes on in phil's mind... i'm more than willing to take one for the whole team. I'll die doing what i love (this)
> 
> everything about him is so easy for me,,,,,,, i'll use my powers for good
> 
> tumblr is @phansb


End file.
